


Harry Potter: Pianist (Composer, Musician...)

by kitkatt0430



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Harry Potter, Gen, Harry learns to love music, and generally his life just... shifts, piano lessons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: It starts when Aunt Petunia gets it into her head that Dudley needs to be more cultured. And what could be more cultured than being able to play the piano?(Or Harry stumbles across a love for music that transforms his life and the lives of everyone around him.)





	1. Before Hogwarts and Year 1

**Author's Note:**

> A not necessarily linear look at Harry as an ambitious pianist and budding composer... who very much doesn't fit anyone's expectations except his own.
> 
> This story will have the years written as sort of top-down summaries (massive top down summaries, but still) with important scenes written out in more detail in later chapters.
> 
> Tags will be updated as the story evolves.

It starts when Aunt Petunia gets it into her head that Dudley needs to be more cultured. And what could be more cultured than being able to play the piano?

Honestly, Harry already knows by this time not to question Aunt Petunia's logic because that way lies only madness... and he's only eight. Dudley, however, has not learned this lesson yet.

Dudley is used to getting his way and his first lesson bores him to the point of, quite possibly, scarring the piano teacher for life (or teaching her the importance of never returning Petunia Dursley's calls - to-may-to, to-mah-to). He expects this will be the last lesson. When his mother, however, doubles down on her determination that her sweet little Dudders will play beautiful classical music, Dudley throws the most epic of all fits ever.

The screaming goes on for nearly an hour and Dudley actually gets grounded - for half a day, but still - and in the end Aunt Petunia makes an appointment for Dudley to meet a new teacher the following weekend. Then she presents Dudley with the electronic keyboard that he will be practicing on for half an hour every day or else.

Huddled in his cupboard, watching through the slats, Harry is amused. But also a little curious. It's easy for him to sneak out in the middle of the night and nick a piano primer from the stack of books that Dudley had ripped up. The pages are, mostly, salvageable with clear packing tape and the keyboard itself is easily accessed in the living, the sound piped through headphones so that only Harry can hear himself play at midnight, tapping out, hesitantly at first, the notes of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.

The music is addictive and sneaking out to play becomes a nightly thing.

One night, however, Harry gets caught by Dudley, who is sneaking downstairs to get a midnight snack. There's a bit of a standoff as the two stare at each other and each tries to figure out how to use this new information to their advantage.

Harry wants music lessons. Dudley wants not to take music lessons. Suffice it to say, they find themselves arranging an accord.

Harry starts 'tagging along' on the piano lessons. Which Petunia isn't thrilled about, but if it gets Harry out of her hair a few times a week then she's fine with that. The duo walk down the street to the teacher's house - a retired music teacher who gives lessons out of her home - and Petunia rarely ever goes with them.

Petunia thinks the lessons go something like this: Dudley learns to play with the grace of a prodigy and Harry does homework or twiddles his thumbs in envy in the back. What actually happens is more like this: Harry learns to play with the diligence of someone who understands repetition trains muscle memory and music is joy in audible form and Dudley usually does his homework, but also learns how to play very basic melodies and chord progressions. Harry learns from workbooks labeled Hanon and song sheets with sonatinas and Dudley eventually learns enough to play pop music from fake books.

So when Aunt Petunia asks Dudley to play for her, he plays for her slightly halting renditions of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and 'All For Love'. Later that night, when everyone else has gone to bed, Harry practices 'The Entertainer', 'Fur Elize', and one of Chopin's Etude's. They're mostly flawless and he's so pleased. But his fingers itch not to just play the classics. He wants to create something new.

Harry starts hoarding paper, carefully stenciling out lines of the musical staff and drawing out the notes that match the songs in his head and fingertips. The first time he played an original piece for his teacher, she praised him for his ingenuity and then asked him about fingering choices and note selection. By the end of the lesson Harry had a new variation of his song written out after the original and homework to create a new song based on one he'd already learned by taking the basic melody and creating something new.

Harry came back to her a week later with two songs and the start of a third.

Unfortunately it was about this time that Harry's letters from Hogwarts start coming in and after a hasty trip to a cabin on the sea - Harry spending his birthday tapping out a melody on keys drawn in the dust, more seen and heard with his imagination than his actual senses - Harry winds up with a bedroom instead of a cupboard and is headed for boarding school instead of public school. Its a mixed bag in that Harry is looking forward to getting away from the Dursleys, but... it means leaving his music behind. Hagrid was cagey about the music educations options at Hogwarts - something about a frog choir? - and Harry is pretty sure that he's going to have to go out of his way to find either a piano or a suitable substitute that will actually work at Hogwarts.

He's fairly certain he won't get away with smuggling in the keyboard.

His teacher buys him a huge stack of piano books as a goodbye present. She makes him promise to come visit her first thing in the summer to play all his new music for her. She gives him homework too; specific pieces to learn and due dates and which ones she wants him to write variations for. She isn't worried that Harry will shirk his practice. She knows by now just how much he loves music.

* * *

At Hogwarts, the hat considers Slytherin. Not for fuzzy, nebulous reasons, but concrete, ambitious child wants to be a composer one day reasons and cunning child has worked to gain the tools necessary to take the first steps towards that goal reasons.

Harry isn't comfortable going into a house with a bully.  He still sat with Ron on the train ride to school, after all, and even before that met Malfoy at Madam Malkins, but... just because Malfoy is an awful git doesn't mean all the others will be that way too.  He knows how people make judgements about him based on his Aunts gossip that aren't true; Harry doesn't want to make snap decisions about an entire House of people based on one brat and gossip. So Harry lets the Hat do what it thinks is best and when the hat shouts SLYTHERIN there's a dead silence.

While its annoying, Harry would rather be applauded for his music and not for what a hat on his head happened to scream loudly anyway, so Harry joins the Slytherin table. He largely ignores Malfoy, but hits it off with Blaise well enough.

Snape has no idea of what to make of any of this and resolves to just... ignore Harry's existence as best he can. This resolution doesn't last long because his most unwanted student stays after the first Gryffindor/Slytherin class of the year, asking about pianos. Severus has no idea if there are any pianos in the castle, but maybe Professor Flitwick knows? He runs the frog choir.

Harry is polite in thanking Snape for his time and wanders off to Flitwick's office to try again. Snape subtly - or not-so-subtly - follows along to try and figure out what the little Potter is up to.

Meanwhile, Harry is... a little frustrated. Because Flitwick says he knows where a piano is, but the first thing Harry is brought to is not a piano. It's a harpsichord. Harpsichords are pretty, but they're not pianos. The sound is all wrong. Harry will make due if he has to, but...

Flitwick's second try is an organ. Harry wants to weep; this is worse than the harpsichord. It's an entirely different skill set.

But third try is indeed the charm. Harry finds himself in front of an old grand piano, made of water damaged mahogany wood with a cherry stain, chipped ivory keys, and so badly out of tune that Harry wants to shout at whoever let this beautiful instrument fall into such awful disrepair. Still, it's a piano and he nearly cries in relief as he runs his fingers gently over the keys and plays several songs that are barely recognizable in the piano's current state. Some of the keys are so broken that pressing them doesn't even produce a sound anymore.

But its a piano and it can be fixed.

Reparo is a first year spell and Harry finds it quickly enough, learning it early with Flitwick after classes that first week. With that spell, used over and over again, he repairs the piano's chipped keys and warped wood and strings and while the piano still isn't in tune, it no longer looks like a wreck and all the keys produce sounds. It's a start.

Tuning the piano, however, is not as simple and Harry ventures into the library for that. And gets lost. He asks Madame Pince for help because the Wizarding Library doesn't use the Dewey Decimal system. She sniffs at him because she's an awful librarian who probably should not be allowed to manage a library meant for children and Harry goes to Professor Snape for help again.

Snape shows Harry a book on wizarding cataloging systems and Harry uses that to locate books on music related magic. It's also when Snape acknowledges that apparently the only thing Harry really cares about is playing the piano.  While Harry is getting decent grades in all his classes, the only time Snape sees any passion in the boy is when it comes to music.  It's a passion Severus recognizes because its one he himself feels for potions making.  And, with Potter in his House, Severus has been forced to see, time and again, that there's no cruelty or malice in Harry the way there was with James.

Despite himself, Severus finally begins to let old grudges go and old hurts heal and takes the first steps towards becoming a better professor to his students.

* * *

Throughout all of this, Harry has basically been confuzzling his fellow snakes and certain nosy Gryffindors who don't get Harry's obsession with the piano. It sounds awful when he plays, but he keeps at it.  All the while the other students wonder if fixing it really worth the effort when they could be playing gobstones or pranking students from other houses or...

Harry finds the spell to tune the piano, however, and convinces Professor Flitwick to tune the piano for him, as its a charm. In return, Harry agrees to play the piano to accompany the Frog Choir.  The choir meets once every two weeks, more when a performance is coming up, and the piano room becomes the new meeting place.

The first time Harry plays the tuned piano and sweet, beautiful tones come flowing out, the students 180 their opinions. This is beautiful, beautiful music and Harry was right to pursue the piano's repair.

(There might have been tears, but no one speaks of those due to mutual blackmail. It's a Slytherin thing.)

Harry has a tendency to be late for curfew after this, playing the piano and generally getting lost in the music. The Prefects give up on taking points after the first few times this happens and just escort him back to his common room every time. And they make requests.

He learns to play Zombie by the Cranberries and various popular muggle rock songs. He learns some more jazz pieces and even writes a few because he likes the freedom it gives him to improvise and make every performance a little different.  He starts gaining a new appreciation for fake books, which let give him interesting melodies and the freedom to do as he likes with them.  Harry's musical style starts being influenced by more than just the classics and his creations begin taking on more and more of his personality.

Harry learns to love flying, though not as much as the piano.  He does not join the team, but writes piece after piece trying to catch the joy of flight within the joy of music.  He ends up composing a few Quidditch fight songs too.

Draco Malfoy is a frequent listener, once he moves past the slight on the train, and is often found in the piano room doing his homework. There's a tense truce in there between him and Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger, who both also like studying to the sound of Harry practicing the piano.

* * *

Dumbledore doesn't know what to make of this. His golden boy is not a Gryffindor, his grumpy potions master is starting to mellow (very, very slightly), inter-house relations between the Slytherins and other houses are improving for the first time in decades... he gives back the Potter family invisibility cloak in hopes of pushing Harry into the School Mystery that Harry has largely ignored so far.  (The troll in the dungeon event occurred, but the Slytherins stayed in the Great Hall because they live in the dungeons.  Hermione was rescued by Neville and Ron, with Neville demonstrating exactly why he was in Gryffindor as he brow beat Ron into taking responsibility for the results of his bullying and saved the only student in their House who was consistently kind to Neville and helped tutor him, even if she was somewhat impatient about it at times.)

Harry uses the cloak a few times over the holiday break - mostly for practicing the piano longer in the evenings and once for a silly prank on Blaise, who was the only one he shared the secret of the cloak with - and then it goes into the bottom of his trunk where, hopefully, no snoopy neighbors will pay attention to what looks like a ragged old cloak and not the treasure it absolutely is.

For Christmas, Harry sends some of his new compositions to his piano teacher and tells her about the harpsichord, which he's decided he wants to learn how to play as well.  She sends him, in return, music that should sound nice on the harpsichord.  (Including, of course, the _Addams Family Theme_.)

Harry does not, however, take an interest in the School Mystery that Dumbledore set up for him.  Hagrid's dragon is taken care of quite neatly with Professor McGonagall's help and the mention of the three-headed dog goes ignored.  Harry never runs into the Mirror of Erised and, if he had, he'd have seen himself performing an original composition on stage.  If there are any murder attempts by Voldemort or Quirrell, Harry never notices a thing.  There's no research into Nicolus Flamel.  There's no suspicion that Snape is anything other than a grumpy professor who'd made questionable career choices when it came to personal happiness.

Towards the end of the year, Quirrell fails to retrieve the stone because Dumbledore's trick with the mirror delayed him until actual adults could show up. The professors did more than set up cheap tricks to pass by; they added actual alarms and they all went running as Quirrell tripped the ones he didn't know about. Harry is nowhere to be found near the third floor corridor; he's in his piano room the whole time, playing for the upper years who need to calm down due to OWLs and NEWTs.

The year ends with Harry having improved his piano playing greatly and having discovered a new love for the harpsichord as well.  (Though the piano comes first in his heart and gets most of his attention as a result.)  While he's not happy about returning to the Dursley's home, he's quite excited to be reunited with his teacher.


	2. First Year - Tuning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds, repairs, and tunes the piano... and finally plays for an audience larger than Dudley and their teacher.

_**Introduction** _

It's beautiful.  Even in this state, it's the most beautiful piano Harry's ever seen.

The wood is a gorgeous deep red.  He thinks it may be stained mahogany.  Or perhaps oak, but... mahogany sounds prettier so Harry's going with that.  And the keys... Harry runs his fingers over the keys and he's not quite sure what to make of them at first.  He doesn't try to make any sound, just feels them.  Some are chipped and cracked and Harry finally depresses a key.  The sound it produces is terrible, but the key itself is what Harry's interested in right now.  It feels different from what he's used to: the fully plastic keys of his keyboard and the plastic veneered wood of Mrs. Jordan's upright piano.

Harry suspects that the white keys are topped with ivory, which would mean the black keys were made of ebony.  In the muggle world, that would make the piano fairly old, as ivory was difficult to legally obtain these days.  Of course, with the wizarding world, there was no telling.  Did wizards even make their own pianos?  Or did they simply purchase them from muggle manufacturers?

There would have been a maker's mark embossed upon the front of the piano once upon a time, but all that's left is a stylized uppercase 'M' positioned such that it had likely been the first letter in the company's name.  But the rest has been lost to time.

Running his fingers up and down the keys, Harry runs through several scales and chord progressions.  Some of the keys don't sound at all.

"The piano bench is missing," Harry notes, stepping away from the piano.  "Is there a spell that could help us find it?"  The room itself is cluttered with other broken instruments, chairs, and a fallen armoire in the back.  Everything shows signs of water damage and Harry suspects that pipes burst in the walls or ceiling at some point in the past.  That no one fixed the instruments afterwards is a terrible crime.

"Indeed there is," Professor Flitwick replies, voice cheerful.  "There's the Point Me spell, which can point us in the right direction.  Or the Accio spell, though that's a fourth year charm.  It's a summoning charm that could bring the bench right to us, though we'd need to be careful to summon it slowly.  Intent at the moment of casting can change the outcome of the spell."  Flitwick paused a beat, then asked, "would you like to try the Point Me spell yourself?"

Harry beamed.  "Yes, I would."

So Flitwick instructed him to hold out his right hand, palm and fingers flat, facing up to the ceiling.  Then he placed his wand atop his palm, thought intently of the piano bench, and focused on the idea of his wand pointing to that bench.

"Point Me Piano Bench," Harry intoned.  His wand twitches and Harry feels something in his chest sort of twitch as well, but nothing really happens beyond that.  Flitwick, however, seems to think the wand twitch was a very good start.

Harry tries a few more times, concentrating on that indefinable something in his chest he felt that first try.  Eventually his wand swings around, twirling once on his palm before settling, pointing towards a group of broken chairs.

Professor and student head over, carefully moving broken furniture - and a badly cracked clarinet - out of the way.  Eventually they find a bench seat beneath the detritus and bring it out.

"I'm sorry its all in such terrible condition," Flitwick finally says as they set the bench in front of the piano.  "I'm sure there are others in the castle, but I'm afraid it'll take me some time to locate them."

"It's alright."  Harry settles onto the bench and carefully closes the lid over the keys.  "The piano may be in bad condition, but that's what magic is for, surely?  There are spells that could repair it."

Flitwick nodded.  "Repairing a piano will take a great deal of time.  It's so large and made of so many pieces that it would need to be repaired piece by piece.  But the spell you're thinking of is called Reparo.  It's another charm, so if you'd like, I can teach it to you during my office hours in the evenings this week."

"I would like that very much, Professor."

_**Chorus** _

Harry picks up the reparo charm quickly.  He practices on other parts of the music room first, starting with the chairs.  Then, when he has six fully repaired chairs that are relatively comfortable to sit on, Harry fixes the piano bench and diligently works to repair the water damaged wooden exterior of the piano.  It doesn't shine - yet - but Harry saw Filch with wood oils that should help soak into the wood and make it lustrous once more.  Harry's prepared to trade for it - what he'll trade, he's not yet sure - when the time comes.  However, the more delicate repair work comes next now that the wood is fixed.

Next, Harry practices his repairs on the other instruments in the room.  He repairs the cracked clarinet with its damaged silver keys once piece at a time.  It's gorgeous by the time Harry's done and he wishes he knew how to play.  He'd want to thoroughly clean it out first, of course, and he's sure it needs specialized oils to keep the cork at the barrel joins supple, but... well, it's not perfectly repaired anyway.  Several of the cork pieces are missing entirely and Harry's pretty sure the mouthpiece needs to be thrown out entirely.  But for now it makes a lovely display piece.

He fixes the armoire and rights it using a levitation charm, then stows the clarinet away inside.  Harry turns to a violin next.  There are no strings left and the hair on the bow is a total loss, but he repairs it best he can then puts it away in the armoire as well.  He tries his luck with a small harp next, paying extra attention to repairing the strings.  It would make good practice for repairing the internal parts of the piano.

When the harp is done, Harry tests out the strings.  They're out of tune, but the effect is hauntingly lovely in its own way.  He carefully sets the harp aside by the armoire then turns his attention to a flute and piccolo that he'd found beneath a destroyed chair.  They're soon set beside the clarinet.  Harry's last test for more delicate repairs is a bass that, much like the violin, no longer has strings.  It's bow is missing entirely.

Confident enough to return to the piano, Harry repairs the ivory keys.  He watches with pride as every crack pulled back together and nearly every chip smoothed out.

As delicate as the keys were, it's the pedals that are the hardest to fix, the internal parts being hard to locate at first.  The bridge, the hitch pin, and the sound board go next.  Harry didn't even know the names for them at the time; he had to look them up later.  Then, last but not least, Harry reparo-ed every string in the piano.  He carefully reattached strings that had snapped or come loose until every single key made a sound when played.

It was still awfully out of tune when he was done, despite his many evenings, and a few weekends, of hard work.  But it was a step in the right direction.

_**Bridge** _

Harry stepped into the library.

According to the Dewey Decimal system, books on keyboard instruments should be somewhere in the 780s; that was where he'd been able to find piano books at his library back home anyway.  Harry was confident he'd find what he's looking for until he actually reaches the stacks.  He quickly realizes that the cataloging system is not the Dewey Decimal system.  In fact, it'd probably make muggle librarians weep.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason at all to the subjects that are stored side by side.

Of course, when in doubt inside a library, the answer is to go find the librarian.  Madame Pince is stern faced as Harry approaches her, but... she's a librarian.  Of course she'll help him, right?

"Excuse me," Harry says quietly when he reaches the desk.

Madam Pince scowls at him and Harry hopes he's only imagining the judgmental glower.

"I'm looking for spells on tuning pianos or tuning instruments in general.  I'm not used to the cataloging system used in wizarding libraries, though, so I don't know where to look.  Will you please help me?"

Madam Pince sniffed disdainfully at him.  "Tuning pianos is not something a first year student needs to learn and it would likely be beyond your ability anyway.  Besides, what good would the charm do you with no pianos in Hogwarts to tune?"  She waved him off.  "Unless you have questions regarding your homework, be on your way."

Harry backs away and then stares blankly at the librarian.  He's never encountered a librarian who acted like that before.  He'd thought librarians only came in variations of 'pleasant' and 'helpful' with a healthy side of 'cannot believe the state of education these days, well don't worry you can broaden your mind here'.  How could she discourage a child for learning and dare to call herself a librarian?

Well, Harry was not about to give up now.  Not when he'd come so far already.

Harry marched down to the dungeons and straight to Professor Snape's office.  Office hours were nearly over for the day, but the door was unlocked and, barely, open.  So Harry slipped inside.

"Professor," Harry said, catching the man's attention.  "I was looking for music related spells in the library, but... the cataloging system is unfamiliar and Madam Pince seems to believe students shouldn't seek to learn outside the appointed curriculum."

Snape snorted softly.  "That woman is even more ill suited to be working with children than I am," Snape muttered to himself.  Harry wasn't sure if he was supposed to hear him or not, so he kept quiet.  Louder, Snape tells him, "come with me."  And then the Professor leads him back to the library.  He takes them over to a set of shelves near the front of the room where Harry had identified was full of different encyclopedia type reference books.

The professor selected a slender novel off a shelf that was face height for Harry and handed it to him.  "This is a book on the Harden-Bell Classification system used most commonly by wizarding libraries.  It is not as efficient as the Dewey Decimal system, but it has certain advantages for the classification of cursed tomes and the like that a muggle system would not consider."

Harry beamed at Snape and gratefully accepted the book.  "Thank you so much, Professor Snape."  He couldn't even begin to guess why the Professor looked so... nonplussed at the gratitude.

"Yes, well... the spell you're looking for will likely be some type of charm."  Snape seemed to think that was all Harry needed to know, as he turned and swept off.

Settling at a table, Harry opened up the reference book and read the introduction.  The first separation of the classification system was 'magical vs non magical' information.  That was spectacularly unhelpful.  If you were looking for information on a plant then you'd have to check both locations in order to find all the relevant information.  Harry was not impressed.

Still, library science wasn't really his area.  He'd check magic first since it was a charm he was looking for.

Magical books were 1.x.* type books.  The classification from there went down into different practices and artes.  Charms, transfiguration, potions and herb lore, art, music...  1.8.x.* is the music magic section.  So Harry flips into the book to where that section is broken down.  It, at least, is broken down by instrument type - string, woodwind, etc - which is further broken down by instrument name.  So piano related magic is 1.8.1.15 and Harry has a starting place to look.

It's getting late, so Harry notes down the number, replaces the book on the reference shelf - also taking note of its name, reference number, and shelf location for later use - and then heads off to dinner.

Harry typically sits with Blaise and Daphne; tonight is no exception and he discusses their homework with them.  Meanwhile, his fingers begin tapping out a new rhythm.  It's been in his head on and off since the evening he found the piano, but this is the clearest its been in the many days since.

It's been too long since Harry worked on a composition.  He's getting antsy about it.

So he pulls out a composition notebook and writes out the rhythm at the top of a blank page.  Normally he'd be at the keyboard by now, trying to fit the rhythm to the right keys to match the music in his head, but without a tuned piano he has to guess.

By now he's lost the train of the conversation, carefully thinking over the notes and imagining the sweet sounds of a tuned piano in his head.  He's settled on the key and is halfway through drawing out the notes when Blaise taps him on the shoulder.

"Time to head back to the common room to finish our homework," Blaise tells him, amusement clear on the other boy's face.  "Unless you're going back to your piano?"

Regretfully, Harry shook his head.  "I need to finish my homework.  I doubt Professor Flitwick would accept 'searching for a piano tuning charm' as an acceptable excuse for not getting the last half of my essay completed."

"Though he might accept you finding and using it successfully as extra credit," Daphne chimes in, slinging an arm around Harry's shoulder.

_**Refrain** _

There was something soothing about repetition.

Using reparo over and over again, checking the indices of one book after another, and now...

"Vibratio Picem Pianoforte," Flitwick said, pointing at the fifth string in the piano.

Harry waited a moment for the string to tighten and then tapped the appropriate key.  His own wand was producing a noise meant to check the pitch of the tone produced.  The sounds melded perfectly to Harry's ear and he smiled.  "Perfect.  Ready for the next one?"

Flitwick sighed.  "There are eighty-eight total?" he asked, looking forlornly at the keyboard.

Laughing, Harry adjusted the pitch of the tuning noise from his wand.  "Just think of how the Frog Choir will sound with actual accompaniment for a change."  His mind, however, was still on the composition he was pulling together in his notebook.

Once the piano was tuned, he'd be able to play it for himself for the first time.

"Vibratio Picem Pianoforte," Flitwick said, pointing at the sixth string in the piano.

It was going to take a while to get there, though.

Harry pressed the appropriate key and grimaced.  "Too flat."

"Vibratio Picem Pianoforte."

It was still too flat, but closer this time.

"Vibratio Picem Pianoforte."

"Just right," Harry sighed, and they moved on to the seventh string.

It was going to take a very long time to get there and, unfortunately, it was probably not going to be finished today.

But, perhaps, tomorrow?

_**Outro** _

In the several weeks it took to repair and tune the piano, Harry gathered something of an unexpected following.

First there were the Slytherins, curious as to where their new celebrity was disappearing to in the evenings.  Blaise would sit in one of the repaired chairs doing his homework sometimes.  Daphne would join him.  Other Slytherins would peer into the room and then when all they saw was Harry repeatedly, persistently repairing things, they'd shrug and leave.  Such hard work was more suited to a Hufflepuff than a Slytherin.

The hat had indeed considered Hufflepuff.  It had carefully considered all the houses, in fact.  Harry had been fascinated by its process of elimination.  Harry was more interested in what knowledge could do for him than in learning for learning's sake.  So Ravenclaw wasn't the right fit.  Harry was hardworking, but not always honest and loyalty was difficult for Harry to entrust to others.  Thus Hufflepuff too was discarded.  Gryffindor was the house of the brave and Harry was brave, but he was of the sort who had courage when it counted and did not seek adventure for its own sake.  Gryffindor wasn't discarded, but the hat clearly only favored it as the second best option.  Slytherin, though... Slytherin was for the cunning and Harry had proven so already, arranging for his piano lessons in such a way that Aunt Petunia wouldn't suspect the truth.  Slytherin was for the ambitious and Harry's ambition as a composer was outstripped only by his great passion for to play for the joy of it.

It was not only Slytherins who were curious about what Harry was up to, however.  Several Hufflepuffs followed him one evening out of curiosity and asked to know when the piano was ready to be played.  Megan Jones in particular was excited, wanting to know if he'd let her dance as he played; she didn't intend to be a professional ballerina but she loved ballet and had nothing to dance to in the school.  (Harry had readily agreed.)  There were a number of Ravenclaws, some of whom wanted to learn reparo from him, but didn't understand why Harry was so bothered over this room in particular.  Sure, the piano was interesting, but learning to play cut down on time better spent learning and reading in the library.  (Harry wondered if they got on better with Madam Pince than he did or if she was as disdainful of Ravenclaws as she was of Slytherins.)  Gryffindors were suspicious of him.  Or at least Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnegan, and Dean Thomas were.  What nefarious plans they thought Harry had with a piano of all things, Harry didn't even want to speculate.  It was possible Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom were suspicious too, but they didn't take notice of Harry until he was searching the library for the tuning spell.

But, at last, the piano was ready.  So Harry let everyone he thought might be interested to hear him play know, and that evening sat down at the piano.  He'd played some the night before, after finishing the tuning with Flitwick's help, but they'd finished up late and the Professor had sent Harry to bed after just a few scales and arpeggios.  

Today, though, Harry brought his book of Hanon exercises and another full of sonatinas that he particularly enjoyed.  There were already several students there waiting for him when he arrived - Blaise and Daphne having come along to hear for themselves Harry's musical justification for putting so much time and effort into repairing the piano - and a few others arrived as Harry did his warm ups.  By the time he was ready to start playing something other than finger stretching exercises, there were first years from every house present.  Most of the first years were seated on the floor and a few had brought their homework with them - like Hermione.  There was already some agreement that the piano did have a lovely sound now, though the warm-ups hadn't exactly thrilled them.

Taking out his book of sonatinas, Harry flipped through the pages and then began to play "Sonatina de l'Actus Tragicus" by Johann Sebastian Bach, followed by "Prelude in C Major".  Then he switched to two of Beethoven's more well known sonatinas before ending with two sonatinas by Muzio Clementi.  His fingers ached a little from all the time away from playing an actual piano - fingering imaginary keys along a desk simply didn't compare in the least to true practice - but Harry was so pleased with himself for finally being able to play for an audience larger than two.

He turned around on the bench after reverently closing up the keys.  "So... did everyone enjoy the performance?"

Blaise and Daphne started clapping and, slowly, everyone else joined in, even the most suspicious of Gryffindors.

Harry swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat, blushing a little.  It felt nice, playing for others and receiving applause in return.  More sure now than ever, Harry slid a hand back along the piano lid.  This was what he wanted to do with his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introduction - A unique section that comes at the beginning of a musical piece  
> Chorus/Refrain - Often used interchangeably, the chorus or refrain refers to a passage of music that recurs throughout the piece  
> Bridge - A transitional section between verses  
> Outro - The final section of song meant to bring closure to the piece
> 
> Though I'm a little out of practice at the moment, I'm not half bad at the piano and can play "Prelude in C Major" (some may recognize that as Red John's theme from _The Mentalist_ ). In college I took a few piano classes because I needed something fun and relaxing as an elective during the semesters I took calculus and physics and performed a four-hands piece with a classmate (a rondo that I still have a copy of somewhere) in our end of semester performance for the last semester I took the class. I also played the clarinet in high school, though I'm so out of practice with it I'm not sure it counts anymore. The last time I played the clarinet, to see if I remembered anything from high school, my embouchure was terrible and my dog went to hide in the kitchen because I was so squeaky. Dogs tend to dislike woodwind instruments in general, but there was a distinct air of 'please stop torturing me now' in her pouting retreat to the kitchen... so the clarinet is back in closet somewhere for now.
> 
> If you have an opportunity to learn the piano, I absolutely recommend it. There's just something extremely relaxing about playing the piano.


End file.
